Modeling China’s interprovincial coal transportation under low carbon transition

Nan Li and Wenying Chen

Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 222, issue C, 267-279

Abstract: Coal transportation plays an important role in the coordinated development of China’s provinces. To analyze changes in China’s interprovincial coal transportation and corresponding emissions under China’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and Well Below 2 degrees target, this study develops a 30-province energy system optimization model (China TIMES-30P) to simulate three low carbon scenarios, including PEAK2030 (Emissions peak at 2030), PEAKA (Emissions peak before 2030) and WBD2 (Well below 2 degrees). The low carbon development will lead to the reduction of coal transportation to 1114,728 and 653 Mtce in 2050 (48%, 66% and 69% lower than the reference scenario) under the PEAK2030, PEAKA and WBD2 scenarios. Meanwhile, the overall coal transportation pattern will be simplified and concentrated. These will cause the decrease of the corresponding freight turnover to 1337, 887,787 billion tkm in 2050 (44%, 63%, 67% lower than the reference) under the PEAK2030, PEAKA and WBD2 scenarios, respectively. Moreover, low carbon transition will also promote the transformation of power generation structure, contributing to the drop of the emission per unit of freight turnover of coal transportation to 3.00, 1.61, 0.52 kt CO2/btkm in 2050 under the PEAK2030, PEAKA and WBD2 scenarios. Owing to the decrease of coal transportation amount, transportation distance and the emission coefficients of coal transportation, cumulative emissions from coal transportation for the period 2010 to 2050 are estimated to be 28%, 48% and 64% lower than the reference scenario in the PEAK2030, PEAKA and WBD2, respectively.

Keywords: Coal transportation; Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); 2 degrees target; China TIMES-30P model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.03.103

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